Faux Pas

There’s a price to fame that many may not want. It’s a price that you rarely notice but I do. Recently a friend of mine told me about a famous comedian who made a joke about a famous athlete who got a sex change. There was a huge backlash to it and the comedian was accused of being “transphobic.”

My friend (who’s black) said of this comedian (who’s also black), “You would think that as a black man with all the history of persecution of blacks that he would be more sensitive to transgenders.”

I Googled the comedian’s joke and said to my friend, “I don’t see where the problem is. This shit is fucking funny.”

I think there is a huge danger to being PC. As we become “evolved” as a society; a society that presumably becomes more sensitive to every individual: we also become prisoners of our own truths and lies. We create cages around cages we thinking we are opening to free others: we become our own captors.

The risk to having to be politically correct is this: we become persecutors and fall into the same traps that we accuse others of doing. We force people to suppress their individuality, their truth, their self-expression. And in the end, this is a slow mental IV-dripping of censorship. We think we are doing humanity good by controlling everything people say. But we have no right to. We can only educate. What we are doing is oppressing people and making demands on their personality in a way that is irresponsible.

To be responsible, we must give others their freedom. If we are offended, then we need to take accountability for it. We can choose to turn the channel. That is our choice. But we cannot force people to behave the way we want them to. And worse, to make people apologize for it is ridiculous.

Even though I come from the LGBT community, I don’t support anything PC. Personality Programming is what Politically Correctness really is. It’s nothing more than a “policy” on human behavior.

No two people in this world are alike. Everyone is an individual and each have their own unique contract with life. They are born into this world to learn certain things and have unique goals. If you step between them and try to shape them—you are violating their personal freedom.

Freedom of individuality and freedom of expression are major tenets of liberation. So if any political group truly believes in that, then they need to learn how to give people space.

The thing is this, if you are famous: you will lose that part of your freedom. You have to appeal to the masses rather than the few close to you—who understand you, who know you, therefore know where you’re coming from. But if you choose to be famous, you have chosen to become a politician. You have to please everybody.

The price to being or becoming famous is this: you have to live up to being the bland packaged piece of chicken under the cellophane that masses expect you to be.

It’s kind of sad huh?

The French have a much better way of handling this. They invented the word, “Faux Pas.” It means literally, “False Step.” When anyone has a faux pas, we forgive them and laugh about it. It gives them a chance to recognize what they did. That’s the compassionate way to live.

About

Ji Strangeway

Sliding Sidebar

About

Ji Strangeway

Executant of the Ineffable

The Three Gates of Speech stipulates that you ask these questions before putting your foot in your mouth: Is it True? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?
Since this doesn't fit the purpose for every occassion, the criteria for my path is:
Is it True?
Is it Necessary?
Is it Indigo?